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Background Quail egg (QE) has been reported to possess an anti-allergic and anti-inflammatory activity. We have demonstrated that whole QE was able to attenuate the allergic symptoms in food allergy-induced EoE murine model, but whether QE albumen or QE yolk plays a more important role still remains unclear. Objective In this current study, we investigated the suppressive role of QE in mast cell degranulation and cytokine production of the effect phase response. Method A passive cutaneous anaphylaxis (PCA) mouse model was used to confirm the anti-allergic effect of QE. Besides, HMC-1 cell model was used to study its suppressive role in more detail. In this in vitro study, we divided QE into three groups: whole QE, QE albumen, and QE yolk. The effect of QE treatment on mast cell degranulation and intracellular calcium influx was investigated. Moreover, the effect of QE allergy- related mediators, genes, and proteins were also assessed by ELISA, RT-PCR, and western blotting. Results and discussion Our data showed that the extent of mast cell degranulation-mediated ear vascular permeability in IgE-mediated PCA mice treated with whole QE (17 mg/kg) was decreased significantly up to 43.31 ± 0.42% reduction. HMC-1 cell-based immunological assay in vitro indicated that QE, particularly its albumen, acted as a 'mast cell stabilizer'. Under the concentration of 70 μg/mL, QE albumen effectively suppressed the releases of β-hexosaminidase, histamine, and tryptase, as well as Th2 and pro-inflammatory cytokine production; reached 30 up to 50% reduction. Besides, QE albumen was also able to significantly modulate the upregulation of IL-10 up to 58.30 ± 5.9%. Interestingly, our data indicated that QE yolk still had a significant inhibitory effect on modulating Th2 cytokines in its highest concentration (100 μg/mL), while QE albumen showed no inhibitory effect. Western blot analysis showed QE albumen effectively down-regulated the expressions of calcium-related protein (TRPC1, Orai1, STIM1, PLC-γ and IP3R), facilitated the reduction of PAR-2 and induced the reduction of phosphorylation of JNK, IKKα, p50 and p65 protein expressions. Conclusion As confirmed by PCA and HMC-1 cell-based immunology assay, QE albumen and QE yolk may work together through exerting anti-allergy activity and can be used as a potential anti-allergic nutrient in the future.

The effect of ultrasound factors (time, power, and duty cycle) on sweet potato pectin molecular weight, neutral sugar composition, pectin structure, and antioxidant activity was investigated. Sweet potato pectin dispersions (0.0025, 0.005 and 0.01g/mL) in deionized water were sonolyzed for 5, 10 and 20min to assess effect of sonication time and pectin concentration on sonolysis. For further experiments 0.0025g/mL was sonicated under varying ultrasonic power and duty cycle levels, subsequently the molecular weight, galacturonic acid content, degree of methoxylation and antioxidant activity of sonicated pectin products were investigated. Results showed that ultrasound treatment reduced pectin molecular weight, while polydispersity did not show clear trend which characterized random pectin scission, increasing duty cycle from 20% to 80% resulted in approximately threefold reduction in pectin molecular weight, increased sonication power from 100W to 400W led to significant increase in galacturonic acid content from 72.0±1.2% in native pectin to between 85.0±3.2% and 92.0±2.7%, the degree of methoxylation significantly reduced from 12.0±3.0% to between 5.25% and 6.28%, sonication led to increase in galactose and decrease in rhamnose consistent with debranching of pectin. Moreover, sonication lead to increased antioxidant capacity, both 200W and 400W sonicated pectin having higher ORAC and FRAP values, with highest pectin concentration 4mg/mL in ORAC and 0.8mg/ml in FRAP giving substantially high antioxidant activity than native and 100W treated pectin. The ORAC value of 400W sonicated pectin increased five hold above the native pectin, while it's FRAP value was almost three fold higher than native pectin. However, ultrasound did not alter pectin primary structure as showed by FTIR and HPAEC results. The results indicated that ultrasound offers effective and green process for pectin transformation and creation of antioxidant potent pectin products.